Indie Comic Review: Choker vol. 1

I picked up this book and upon opening the cover, with the first panel I could see I knew I was hooked. The gritty feel of the art sucks you in and the story keeps hold of you until the end.

Before I get ahead of myself swooning over this let me cover a few other things. You should read the intro. The intro details the interactions between the Bens (Templesmith and McCool), how the story came to be, and a little insight into who this team is at their heart.

Now to what you really want to know, Johnny Jackson is the “Hero” of the story an ex cop/
private eye with plenty of baggage and a partner Seaton Price who represents the most repressed of men. The story opens with the two of them working a case to catch the mayor in the act of something less than savory and succeeding. Johnny’s back story is slowly rolled out through the novel showing each gritty piece detailing what happened to remove him from the police force.

The detail and colors accentuate the grotesqueness of the city itself. The reader is shown a devolved society that bathes itself in its own filth giving way to the gene splicing of humanity into forms barely seen in its nightmares. The way that this plays out is done well. You are not blasted from the get-go of the entire back story. It is a slow reveal where you don’t really know everything until you are half way through the book – and even then there is a little more.

Shortly after opening you are introduced to the man that really behind Johnny’s removal from the police force, Milton Ellis the police chief. Johnny was removed because he was resistant to Man Plus and could no longer compete with the new redesigned super police created with the super drug. He is offered the opportunity to return if he can catch Hunt Cassidy, a criminal with a disturbing record, that the Man Plus cops are unable to catch. Johnny’s resistance to the Man Plus created his “disability”, alien hand syndrome. His is a perfect representation of “it got into my hand and it went bad”.

We are also introduced to his Man Plus partner from the force Flynn Walker, a cold, calculating, and brutal woman that represents the epitome of the Man Plus destruction perfected. Walker is represented not as a sex symbol but as an actual cop, there is no witty banter or sexual overtones. Had this been done any different I think it would have ruined it for me.

The criminals roll out in true form destroying everything in their path in a ballet of blood and
gore, just enough to let the reader know how destructive they are but at the same time not making them supermen. Vampires, Eaters, and ‘roided out super freaks that you find have been enhanced with Cassidy’s drugs.

I could not have asked for a better ride to the end but there are a two pieces that did not work
for me. The fact that the vampires can fly was a little hard to swallow. The second was the test subject. I was confused how there was this one person that was being experimented on to manufacture all of the drugs. I would have expected there to be more considering the other experiments, but only one for the vampires. I got over it… the story just kept me enthralled.This creature serves as damming evidence and an interesting freak of nature to help out the humans but only serving her own needs.

This was a great story and I can only hope for there to be a second volume. A number of hints
are dropped about Seaton and the other characters that I would love to see fleshed out, but I leave that to the experts.